Tasting Notes

50 Best Restaurants in Asia

FOUR predicts the shortlist for The 50 Best Restaurants in Asia for 2013 to be released on 25 February

The first publication of the 50 best restaurant in Asia for 2013 is to be released on 25 February. FOUR gets in early and predicts some of the contenders

We’ve kown for a while that Asia is a strong contender when it comes to defining where in the world the best restaurants are. You only have to look towards the world-famous Michelin Guide for your proof: Tokyo in Japan holds 331 michelin stars, more than any other city in the world. Moreover, of the 10 cities with the most stars in the world, 10 of them belong to Asia.

We’ve kown for a while that Asia is a strong contender when it comes to defining where in the world the best restaurants are. You only have to look towards the world-famous Michelin Guide for your proof: Tokyo in Japan holds 331 michelin stars, more than any other city in the world. Moreover, of the 10 cities with the most stars in the world, 10 of them belong to Asia.

So you can imagine our relief when we found out that on the 25th of February Restaurant Magazine and The World's 50 Best Restaurant Awards sponsored by S.Pellegrino & Acqua Panna will announce, for the first time ever, a new list compiled of the 50 Best Restaurants in Asia, the first 50 best restaurant 2013 in Asia. The culinary spotlight over Asia has been long over-due and this compilation of The Best in the, ahem, East, could really bring to light the imaginative, sophisticated and often avant-garde hosts of Asian cuisine.

Take Jiro Ono and his three Michelin starred sushi restaurant, Sukiyabashi Jiro, for example - a 10-seat, sushi-only restaurant inauspiciously located in a Tokyo subway station, which serves no snacks and no appetizers; just plate after plate of what has been described as the world’s best sushi. Or what about Ignatius Chan who owns Iggy's restaurant in Singapore, Yoshihiro Narisawa who runs the Narisawarestaurant in Japan and Andre Chiang, whose Mediterranean fusion Restaurant André, which serves gorgeous looking food as featured above, is making waves in Singapore. No one knows exactly who will be on the list, but we feel that all four of these Asian chef A-listers deserve a cut.

And then there’s also the huge number of discerning western chefs who have made their home in Asia and have already attracted the attention of epicureans world-wide, by giving their guests a completely unique dining experience. Paul Pairet, who also has a Lifetime Achievement award under his cooking black-belt, runs Ultraviolet restaurant in Shanghai where diners are picked up in a mini-bus before being delivered to a secret location somewhere in the city, all before enjoying a truly unique 20-course tasting menu that includes foie gras cigarettes and cola rocks.

Asia already has The Miele Guide which was first published in 2008 – the fifth edition of it was released earlier on this year and boasts over 500 restaurants from 17 different Asian countries and heralds a full profile of the Top 20 restaurants in Asia. But we think the more PR the NE (North East) of the world gets the better and look forward, with Asian-flavoured-bated-breathe, to getting our hands on a copy of 50 Best Restaurants in Asia.